Manga Status: Complete
Number of Chapters: 50
Genres: Shoujo, Slice of Life, Comedy, Drama, Romance
This review is for the manga series as a whole.
Taiyou no Ie is the story of Motomiya Mao, a high school student whose father has recently gotten remarried. With his new wife he gains a new daughter, and Mao feels more left out than ever. After Mao and her father butt heads, she moves in with her childhood friend, 23-year-old Nakamura Hiro, who lives alone in his family home.
This manga has romance as a genre, but it is very muted... and I'm completely okay with that. Instead, the main focus of this story was of family. Mao doesn't get along with her father, and was abandoned at a young age by her mother. Hiro, on the other hand, had a great life: both of his parents loved each other, and he had a younger brother and a younger sister. His house was filled with love and happiness, so much that Mao spent most of her free time there instead of sitting home alone. But when Hiro's parents die and his siblings relocate to live with different relatives, Hiro's dream of living in their home, happy and all together, seems infinitely far away.
I actually really liked Mao. She had a lot of dark emotions, but instead of becoming an angry, spiteful character, she let out these emotions by writing a cell phone novel based on her life. She's actually really popular under her assumed pseudonym (a historic play on her name). Mao's writing is what releases and relieves her painful emotions, and I like that this manga showed that creativity can ease hurt and act as therapy. It's also a fun twist that Hiro has been keeping up with her novel... completely unaware that she's the author.
But Hiro is actually kind of a bland character, in my opinion. I don't know. I didn't love or hate him, though I really did like to see his interactions with Mao.
The romance is sweet and understated. Of course, Hiro and Mao grow closer together the longer they live in the same house. Mao actually falls for him. And what's nice is that this isn't the possessive kind of like. Mao decides that she's going to help Hiro meet his dream of having his entire family living under one roof, happy and together.
There is a bit of a love triangle though, between Mao, Hiro, and (dun dun) Hiro's younger brother, Daiki. I would guess that you know how this triangle ends up, but I don't want to reveal the finer specifics of it.
Taiyou no Ie is an enjoyable manga, but not one of my favorites. I liked it and finished it quickly enough, but I didn't love it. I just simply liked it.